Art and Culture

How to Make a Black Widow Spider Mobile

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Spiders!

This exercise is meant to serve as a tool to help students learn about the Black Widow Spider. It provides information so students will have a basic understanding about where the Black Widow lives, what it eats, and how it interacts with other spiders. This craft is not only educational but fun to make as well!

Materials

For Spider:

1 wire hanger

Fishing line (silver or clear)

40 pipe cleaners (black)

1 small Styrofoam ball

1 large Styrofoam ball

3 toothpicks

Glue

Paint (black and red)

Construction paper (any color)

For Flies:

1/2 black pipe cleaner per fly

White tissue or tissue paper

Instructions

Put the three toothpicks into the large ball in the shape of a triangle. Place the small Styrofoam ball on top and press down until balls meet. If the balls do not hold together use glue as a reinforcement.

Paint Styrofoam balls black.

While the paint is drying make legs. Take four black pipe cleaners and wrap a fifth one around them. Repeat eight times for eight legs.

Paint a red hourglass shape on underside of the large Styrofoam ball.

After body is dry push the legs into the large Styrofoam body. Make sure that there are four legs on each side spread evenly. Use glue if necessary. This is technically not anatomically correct. Real spiders have their legs on the smaller portion of their bodies. However, this does not suit the purpose of this mobile.

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